Georges MÉLIÈS looks back on his film career.

Georges Méliès (1861.1938)

Autograph letter signed to Auguste Drioux.

Four pages in-12°

Paris. July 7, 1929.

“I have so much to do with cinema journalists…”

Moving and rich letter from Méliès, finally rehabilitated, requested by Drioux for his conjuring magazine. Méliès looks back on his cinematographic career and his opponents, evokes Maurice Noverre his first biographer, his quest for the Legion of Honor, and recounts the gloomy daily life of his toy shop at Gare Montparnasse.

“My dear Mr. Drioux, I am sending you the little article on Carmelli, requested by you. I received the photo of Robert Houdin Jr. and I thank you for it; I will return it to you as soon as I have had the reproduction made. I have so much to do with the cinema journalists who have been harassing me with interviews since the articles about me appeared in "Le Temps" and "L'ami du peuple", that I ask you to warn me if I start late to provide you with articles for PM [Passsez Muscade, the review founded and directed by Drioux] . I will soon have important articles with numerous illustrations in “L’Intran[sigeant]” and in “Pour vous”.

In short, the campaign is taking shape; at the same time as Noverre [Maurice Noverre, considered the first cinema historian] wrote my history and published numerous brochures on my career . The sale of the special issue is currently experiencing a downtime, let's hope that requests will one day come from abroad. As for the famous red ribbon, it is always wrongly and loudly demanded by the press, but... does not arrive quickly. It will come !! I now have good support, from Mr. Collignon, former prefect of the Seine and director of the institute for deaf and mute people who will boost me. , who are only rich merchants, not artists, oppose me (without appearing to do so) The fight is hard but it fascinates me, and prevents me from getting too bored in my prison at the station.

I am sending you a table recently published by Noverre, and displayed in all schools in France... and it's not over. We will know !! (I hope so) name of name!! In the meantime, I am delighted to see the month of August arrive; because on August 15th, I too intend to flee to the Breton coast. In my humble opinion, the horizons of the sea are much more pleasant to contemplate than the walls of the Montparnasse station , and then we breathe something other than the smell of burnt gasoline from the Company's trucks and taxis and motorcycles. Long live the great outdoors! Sir ! …and above all long live complete freedom!

My next major documentary article will be devoted to the “Yellow Dwarf”. I make the drawings in my spare time, before writing the text, which for me is nothing, once the drawings are done. I hope you have a good vacation, unfortunately too short. Good handshake. G. Méliès.

I sent the special issue to Mr. Hardy (…) Excuse the erasures, and the paragraph added in the Carmelli article. I think the printer will recognize it, but we are so busy with vacation departures that I don't have time to copy it. The idea came to me to add these comical phrases, to liven up the article and make people laugh .

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Georges Méliès ceased all cinematographic activity in 1913. A widower, ruined by the First World War, forgotten by the artistic world, he married his second wife, Jehanne d'Alcy. This manages, within the Gare Montparnasse, a small toy and candy store. From then on, Méliès took care of the small business with Jehanne. During the long hours spent running the toy store, seven days a week, Méliès becomes bored and suffers from this closed world – as he testifies in this letter; but he continues to draw (even sketching himself chained to the station walls).

It is in this place that Léon Druhot, editor of Ciné-journal, finds him. One morning like any other, a cafe owner passing by greets Méliès with a resounding “ Hello, Monsieur Méliès!” ". Léon Druhot , finding himself there, could not believe his ears, he imagined Méliès dead a long time ago. He asks her: “Are you related to Georges Méliès who worked in cinema before the war? » – “But it’s myself.”

Thanks to Druhot, Méliès emerges from oblivion. The filmmaker will then fight fiercely for recognition of his role as inventor of the cinematic spectacle and his technical discoveries.

The surrealists discovered his work and the profession finally recognized him. Sponsored by Louis Lumière, Georges Méliès finally received the Legion of Honor – the famous red ribbon mentioned in this letter – on October 22, 1931, during a banquet for 800 guests at Claridge.

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Auguste Drioux (1884.1937), recipient of this letter, was a recognized conjurer at a very young age. In 1916, he founded the Revue Passez Muscade , the quarterly bulletin for conjurers. Apart from the regular publications, Drioux published a special issue in honor of Georges Méliès (1929) who is mentioned in this letter.

Maurice Noverre met Méliès and visited his studio in Montreuil in the 1920s. The description he gave of the first permanent cinema studio, now defunct, was not published until 1929, in Le Nouvel Art Castronomie (June 1925 – April 1930), magazine of which he was the founder, director and editor.

Considered the first historian of French cinema, Noverre defends the forgotten, the inventors plagiarized and dispossessed of their works. A specialist in Georges Méliès, with whom he maintained a long correspondence (kept at the Cinémathèque française), he was the first to describe very precisely the layout of his first studios and produced a set of essential texts on the filmmaker.

He was also one of the organizers of the “ Méliès Gala ” which took place in Salle Pleyel on December 16, 1929. A founding gala for Méliès' cinematic posterity, where some of the artist's greatest successes were screened, including the legendary Voyage dans la Lune. . His granddaughter, Madeleine Melthête-Méliès, wrote her memories with emotion:

“ When I saw for the first time, at the  Gala Pleyel  in 1929, eight found films of my grandfather (I was six and a half years old), I was far from thinking that I was going to chase the drawings, letters, photos, costumes and films for more than sixty years . In 1943, I became secretary at the  Cinémathèque française .  Henri Langlois  told me “I have the cinema of the whole world on my shoulders, take care of  Méliès ”, which I did. Not a year goes by without finding a film, a drawing, a letter. It is always a moment of double emotion because, in addition to that of the collector, there is that of the granddaughter finding the trace of her grandfather the magician who played tricks on her with cards, cigarettes and coins while talking to him about Homer and Offenbach. »